Our route to Acadia took us straight through Niagara Falls, and we knew we couldn’t just pass through. As luck would have it, we ended up there on my daughter’s 7th birthday!
We stayed at the Grand Island/Niagara Falls KOA. I would give this campground a 10/10 rating. The sites are huge, even my daughter commented “usually there would be a whole other camper in between us and our neighbor!”. It had two pools, fishing ponds, a cool playground, dog parks, (even sites with their own private fenced in dog area!!!), jump pads. And everything was very clean and well maintained. My only complaint is that there wasn’t a ton of natural shade, but you’re also in upstate New York, so not exactly sweltering temps most of the year.
We checked in around 4:00. We did a quick opening of presents and then headed out for pizza at Brick Oven Pizzeria which was about 2 minutes away from the KOA. This place did not have great reviews, but we all had a great experience. Service was good, beer was cold, pizza was hot and toppings were plentiful. We had a party of 9, and they were able to get us seated quickly at a nice table on the patio.
After dinner we headed to the falls. By the time we parked it was about 7:15, and the Maid of the Mist closes at 8:00. The girls and I ran ahead and bought tickets, we met up with everyone else and got on the last boat of the night! There were very few people on the boat so we had great views up on the rails the whole time, and we were able to basically walk right on the boat. The Maid of the Mist does not take any sort of reservations. You can buy tickets in advance but that does not guarantee you a spot on the boat. Because of this, we didn’t buy anything in advance because we didn’t want to end up with a ticket we weren’t able to use.
We LOVED the boat ride. It is short and sweet but takes you right into the “horse shoe” which is seriously cool. I would have loved to explore the State Park further but we were all beat from a day of driving, so we called it a night and headed home.
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